eucatastrophe n. eucatastrophic [ < Gr. eu, "good" and catastrophe Coined by JRR Tolkien.] 1. (in a narrative) The event that shifts the balance in favor of the protagonist when all seems lost. 2. A happy ending.

September 2016

09/26/2016

"You know they can foreclose on Friday, so come hell or high water, get the money to the bank on Thursday and then you are free and clear."

This film should get an Oscar for the title. On one level, the phrase “come hell or high water” means that you plan to do something no matter what. Nothing is going to stop you. As the film pits one man who will do anything to pass on a better life to his sons than he had - against a man who intends to enforce the law no matter what, it fits. "I've been poor my whole life, like a disease passing from generation to generation.” Toby says, “But not my boys, not anymore."

But the title also has a double entendre meaning. There is an expression in real estate “under water” that refers to people who owe more on their property than their property is worth. There are people out their literally “drowning” in debt and it is these people that banks can and have taken advantage of. The mother of the criminals in this film is one of them. Toby, the central character sees no other choice than to rob the bank before it can rob his boys of their inheritance. For him, “hell or high water” is a choice. Rob banks. Possibly murder people and go to hell on the one hand … or lose his family’s oil dripping Texas ranch and doom his kids to poverty and despair on the other.

The movie ends with mutual threats. “Maybe I’ll give you peace,” Marcus Hamilton, the now retired Texas Ranger says to Toby. Euphemistically (i.e. “Maybe I will kill you”). “Maybe,” Toby responds, “I’ll give it to you.” We are left unsure, given the circumstances, what a just outcome would be. We are left asking, were the people killed during thee bank robberies collateral damage in a fight for justice?

Question for Comment: What is your present attitude towards banks? Where does your attitude come from.

09/04/2016

The title has the sound of a folk song and a Bonnie and Clyde nostalgia about the doomed romances of outlaws. The director indicated in one interview that he “wanted the movie to look like an old piece of wood, or look like we were shooting it through a burlap sack.” It is a movie about basically good people doomed to eventual misery by their momentary or maybe even egregious but not all encompassing faults. The reference to “bodies” in the title forewarns us that not everyone will survive and it hints that those who do not survive, despite appearances, are not all entirely bad. According to the dictionary, a saint is “a person acknowledged as holy or virtuous and typically regarded as being in heaven after death.” The movie asks us to look even on the criminals we are introduced to as good people underneath. We cannot necessarily be defined by our life’s worst deed.

The film leaves you with questions about who might or might not be a saint? Take the main character, Bob Muldoon. He commits a robbery at the beginning of the film, but we are given to understand that his motives were “pure” (to build a home for his family). We see him voluntarily surrender himself during a shootout and take the blame for shooting an officer in order to give his girlfriend (the one who actually shot the officer) her freedom. He escapes from prison but we come to empathize with his desire to spend his life with a wife and child “I used to be a devil but now I am a man he says to one of his guards.” Even when bounty hunters try to kill him, he spares their lives when it is no longer a matter of self-defense. That is, his intentions even in committing crime is not necessarily cruel or vicious. Ruth Guthrie, his girlfriend, certainly cannot be said to be innocent, and she does not claim to be, but, we sense that her commitment and love for her daughter are genuine and deep. She may have shot a police officer but, she is loyal and devoted to Bob and willing to wait for the man who has volunteered to spend 25 years in jail for her. Her next door neighbor, we learn, was not innocent himself, Indeed, he was deeply implicated in the tragedy and maybe be more responsible than anyone. But this does not stop him from sacrificing his life to protect Ruth and her daughter when everything gets dangerous for her.

If the film has any message at all it is that even criminals are capable of great sacrifice for those they love. Despite the irony, when we all meet at the pearly gates, we may discover that a lot of saints have criminal records. If these people can be or become saints, perhaps, just perhaps so can we?

Question for Comment: Do you know any good people who have done bad things? Would you consider yourself one of them? If people were to define you by your life’s worst decision, who would think well of you?